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To help us
walk through

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what they're doing
now, what the crew

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00:00:03,680 --> 00:00:06,014
is up to, we're joined
right now by

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Colonel Jim Dutton,
who's one

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of our astronauts,

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part
of the 2004 class.

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Jim, thank you
for joining us.

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It's great to be here,
Allard. Thanks.

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Well,
if you wouldn't mind,

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we've got
a couple minutes

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00:00:15,860 --> 00:00:16,840
before we see
the crew, why don't

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you walk us through
you?

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Okay.
A little about me:

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I grew up
in Eugene, Oregon.

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I joined
the Astronaut Corps

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about four years ago,

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as you said,
May of 2004,

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with the
class

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we affectionately
call the Peacocks.

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And my background
is with the Air Force.

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I was a test pilot,

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and before that I flew
as an operational

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pilot
in the F-15 Eagle.

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I have to—you opened
it up, I have to ask.

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This is what happened:
the classes give

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themselves different
names, and Peacock.

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Why a Peacock?

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Well, we didn't give
ourselves that name.

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Although I'll say
we took it

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over an alternative
that we preferred

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Peacock
to the other one.

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But
when we first came in,

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we were told
as a class

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that we would not
fly on the shuttle,

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based on the way
things were going

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and how it looked

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with the number
of crew members

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or astronauts
who had not flown yet.

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And so there
was also a lot of pomp

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and circumstance
about our arrival

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because of the new
vision for going

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back to the Moon. And
so we were labeled

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Peacocks because
we're all show

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and we don't fly.
So I think we can,

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you know,
take pride in that now

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that we've got
our first classmate

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on this flight,

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Aki Hoshide,
a Japanese astronaut,

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and we're going
to start seeing a lot

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more of our classmates
on shuttle flights.

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And they're trying
to get actually all

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the rookies
in the office,

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00:01:35,140 --> 00:01:37,074
the unflown
astronauts, up in

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one mode or another,
most on shuttle,

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before we retire
the shuttle.

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As a way to get
experience to be ready

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for, obviously,

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the Constellation
program,

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the Orion capsule
and spacecraft.

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Exactly. We're going
to have a five-year,

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00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:50,960
roughly,
delay between shuttle

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and bringing
Orion online,

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so we want to carry
as much experience

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as we can over
into Constellation.

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As a matter of fact,
NASA is also

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right now
actively looking,

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00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:02,260
at least for another
month or so,

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00:02:02,260 --> 00:02:03,780
for a 2009 class.

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00:02:03,960 --> 00:02:04,640
That's correct.

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00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:06,240
I think pretty
probably safe to say

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that that class

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will not fly
on a shuttle.

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00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:09,620
That's true.
They are being

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brought in to actually
fly on station

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00:02:11,920 --> 00:02:13,920
during the interim
before Constellation

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and then
obviously carry

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on into Constellation.

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So, yeah,
it's very exciting.

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It'll be a five-year
gap, which is

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00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:19,980
a very long gap,

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00:02:19,980 --> 00:02:21,100
and it's going
to be great

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to have some new folks
in the office.